Review: Blanck Mass - World Eater

Having downloaded a fair share of new music in the last 3 months I noticed a lot of it was in the vein of catching up or adding to my retrospective of certain artists whom I revere or am curious about.

One of the exceptions to this is the exemplary “World Eater” by Blanck Mass. 

This came as a recommendation through AOTY (Album of the Year)

and I have been using this as resource for about 2-3 years now, with great success as it taps into the heretofore unknown sections of Electronic music and those artists that creep onto the market quietly with some fantastic work.

Blanck Mass is one of those artists, and - just like the album cover - bears its teeth from the get go.

Beginning the album is the stunning “John Doe’s Carnival of Error” which hisses into the airwaves and offers some rolling piano/synth layers before breaking into a semi-chaotic churn of mixed and garbled, reversed vocal samples and manic beats...a sort of Orbital meets Aphex Twin mash-up for a quality first two and a half minutes.

“Rhesus Negative” follows with a fantastic nine minute opus which utilises hard beats, visceral sounds and has an incessant rhythm which builds to a crescendo.

“Please” changes the pace somewhat bringing us more in line with a dubstep track akin to Burial, with an overlay of sprawling synth.

“The Rat” ups the tempo again and sounds most like an Orbital track than any other. There’s a lovely tone to the organ and chimes used in the track which runs neatly through the tune.

“Silent Treatment” commences with a sampled chant, and then launches headlong into frenetic beat patterns and a superb melody and lovely synth textures.

“Minnesota/Eas Fors/Naked” crackles and hums along until the track sits back and allows you to feel like its put you inside a celestial body floating in space, before reverting to nature with the sounds of running water and a sampled track fade out.

“Hive Mind” closes things off nicely with a very distinct oriental melody pattern alongside sample shouts and snippets of vocals, all culminating in an aural attack akin to Fuck Buttons .

...which is funny as this album was penned by Benjamin John Power of FB fame. I didn’t know this before I listened and I’m glad as it didn’t unnecessarily taint my view or falsely raise expectations.

I love Fuck Buttons and their brand of Electronic music hits you right between the eyes, and Blanck Mass is the relative comedown I suppose.

Great effort and it has spurned me on to look at the rest of the back catalogue too.

I literally cannot wait.

9/10

Badger x